“I did n't see it myself, but Simmy Crow told me of it; and that it was full of all the fellows he ruined,—how much he won from this man, what he carried off from that; and, moreover, there was your own name, and the date of the very evening that he finished you off! It was something in this wise: 'This night's work makes me an estated gentleman, vice Harry Martin, Esquire, retired upon less than half-pay!'”
A terrible oath, uttered in all the vehemence of a malediction, burst from Martin, and seizing Scanlan's wrist, he shook his arm in an agony of passion.
“I wish I had given you a hint about him, Master Scanlan,” said he, savagely.
“It's too late to think of it now, Captain,” said the other; “the fellow is in Baden.”
“Here?” asked Martin.
“Ay. He came up the Rhine along with me; but he never recognized me,—on account of my moustaches perhaps,—he took me for a Frenchman or a German, I think. We parted at Mayence, and I saw no more of him.”
“I would that I was to see no more of him!” said Martin, gloomily, as he walked into another room, banging the door heavily behind him.
CHAPTER XXII. HOW PRIDE MEETS PRIDE
Kate Henderson sat alone in her room reading a letter from her father, her thoughtful brow a shade more serious perhaps than its wont, and at times a faint, half-sickly smile moving her dimpled cheek. The interests of our story have no concern with that letter, save passingly, nor do we regret it. Enough, if we say it was in reply to one of her own, requesting permission to return home, until, as she phrased it, she could “obtain another service.” That the request had met scant favor was easy to see, as, folding up the letter, she laid it down beside her with a sigh and a muttered “I thought as much!—'So long as her Ladyship is pleased to accept of your services,'” said she, repeating aloud an expression of the writer. “Well, I suppose he's right; such is the true reading of the compact, as it is of every compact where there is wealth on one side, dependence on the other! Nor should I complain,” said she, still more resolutely, “if these same services could be rendered toilfully, but costing nothing of self-sacrifice in honorable feeling. I could be a drudge—a slave—to-morrow; I could stoop to any labor; but I cannot—no, I cannot—descend to companionship! They who hire us,” cried she, rising, and pacing the room in slow and measured tread, “have a right to our capacity. We are here to do their bidding; but they can lay no claim to that over which we ourselves have no control—our sympathies, our affections—we cannot sell these; we cannot always give them, even as a gift.” She paused, and opening the letter, read it for some seconds, and then flinging it down with a haughty gesture, said, “'Nothing menial—nothing to complain of in my station!' Can he not see that there is no such servitude as that which drags out existence, by subjecting, not head and hands, but heart and soul, to the dictates of another? The menial—the menial has the best of it. Some stipulate that they are not to wear a livery; but what livery exacts such degradation as this?” And she shook the rich folds of her heavy silk dress as she spoke. The tears rose up and dimmed her eyes, but they were tears of offended pride, and as they stole slowly along her cheeks, her features acquired an expression of intense haughtiness. “They who train their children to this career are but sorry calculators!—educating them but to feel the bitter smart of their station, to see more clearly the wide gulf that separates them from what they live amongst!” said she, in a voice of deep emotion.